


No More Brenda & Eddie

by tryslora



Category: Scenes from an Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel (Song)
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Romance, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years after leaving her hometown, Marisol returns for a dinner with her best friend Jake, and hopes for glimpse of Brenda: the girl she left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More Brenda & Eddie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedi_penguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedi_penguin/gifts).



It’s been fifteen years, but Sam’s hasn’t changed much. It’s the last place I went that night before my family moved an hour east of here, and it’s the first place I come when I’m in town just for the night. I park in the tiny parking lot alongside the old white house that doesn’t look much different from all the other houses on the street except for the tiny sign hanging outside. If you didn’t know the best Italian restaurant in the district was in the basement, you’d pass it on by, and most folks do. I’ve heard it has a reputation now, a little hole in the wall that the yuppies come to after work.

Fifteen years ago, it was where all the kids hung out on Friday night, eating huge bowls of pasta and amazing chicken parmigiana and playing the juke box all night long.

We all lived in the neighborhood, which made it easy. I lived two streets east and a block north, and Jake lived three blocks north on this very street. But it was Brenda and Eddie who first picked the place. Eddie’s grandfather was the Sam who first opened it, back ages ago, and Brenda was the one who decided it was _the_ place to hang out. And everyone did what Brenda and Eddie did.

I sit in my car, half tempted for a moment to pull out of the parking place and drive up the street to Jake’s old place. Except Jake doesn’t live there anymore, and there’s better parking here—off street spots are precious in this part of the city. I can’t go back again. But that’s okay, because do any of us really want to go back to those awkward high school years?

I spot Jake as soon as I walk in, sitting in the back left corner at the table that was always _ours_. He’s got a bottle of red and a bottle of white, both open on the table, waiting for us to get started. Last time I was here, we couldn’t even bribe the waitress to bring us wine. Time changes everything.

He stands and I go into his waiting arms like I never left him behind. “You look good,” I tell him, and he does. He’s gone a little grey around the temples, and there are laugh lines around his eyes, but he’s still the same Jake that I remember from when we were seventeen and I practically lived in his pocket. Or he lived in mine, it was hard to tell. I burrow in close, pressing my face into the hollow of his throat, laughing when he squeezes me hard. “You still smell the same.”

“It’s hard to go wrong with Old Spice.” He grins. “It never changes.”

“I’m glad. It’s familiar.” And so is this place, and the chivalrous way Jake pulls my chair out so I can sit. He pours our wine, which is a new addition to our routine, but he used to pour wine with that same solemnity. He always treated me well, even when some other people didn’t.

“You look good, too.” Jake drops into his seat across from me, and under the table his toes touch mine as he stretches out. I tap his foot with mine and he smiles, and we let them tangle like we used to. “You look better than good, really,” he clarifies. “You’ve lost weight.”

Oh. That. It had always been a struggle for me when I was a teenager, being barely five foot two, and I topped out at over 150 at one point. If it was anyone other than Jake commenting on it, I’d think he was being catty, but I knew he was just being honest, so I say, “Thanks. I got lucky, really. Getting out of here helped, somehow. It was like I changed my whole self.”

“And stopped coming back to see us.”

“Yeah.” It’s hard to know what to say to that. 

“You didn’t move all that far away,” he says, leaning forward to take my hand. “You could’ve come back and visited any time.”

I shrug one shoulder and try to find words that didn’t make it all seem too honest. Although if anyone deserves my honesty, it’s Jake. “It was senior year, and you guys were all going on without me. And I had this new place I had to fit into and survive. Then college, and no one really looks back after that.”

“Except you’re here now,” Jake points out.

“So are you.”

He smiles at that. “I’m one of those that never left. Went to the community college, then transferred to the university. When I got my first job, it just seemed like I should stick around.”

“And now you’re married?” Because that was part of what had brought me out here, knowing that there were changes that we could celebrate. I’d used a trip for work, scheduling myself in a day early so I could have time to meet up with friends. And maybe someone else.

His smile is so bright it almost knocks me over. “Catherine, yeah. And she’s pregnant.”

“Already?” I have to laugh. “That’s some quick work there.”

“It’s been six months.” Gently chiding, because I didn’t send a gift, and didn’t come to the wedding. I’d sent a card, a few weeks ago, with a crisp hundred dollar bill in apology. He continues though, as if I haven’t hurt him by ignoring him, and I hold onto his hand while he does. “New job, too, over in the Tech Park. We’re moving into our house in a few months, when it’s built. Everything’s working out.”

“Everything does, eventually.”

Bread is placed on the table in front of us, and I pulled my hand back. I don’t recognize the waitress, but then, I didn’t expect to. She’s young, maybe in high school now herself, and I wonder if she might be Eddie’s kid.

Brenda’s kid, too.

My gaze swivels, following her, trying to see them in her somehow. I know it’s impossible, that it hasn’t been long enough for a kid to be working age and here, but I do it anyway.

“I see ghosts here sometimes, too,” Jake says. “Which ones are you seeing?”

“Brenda and Eddie,” I admit. “It seems strange to be here without them now, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, man.” Jake leans back, stretching out as he shakes his head. “Now there are two people I haven’t thought of in a while.”

My heart flip-flops. “Why? What happened?”

“They got married, just like we always knew they would.” He leans forward again, hands expressive as he tells the story. “They got this old house just outside of town, and he got a job as a mechanic. Then she got pregnant, and next thing we knew, they were fighting all the time. When they divorced, they split their friends up, too. Eddie got the apartment. Brenda moved home with her mom for a while, then she dropped out of sight. I don’t know what happened with her.”

My hand clenches in my lap. “Not anything?” I ask, careful and quiet.

Jake frowns. “Hey. What’s wrong, Mari?”

“You’ve been living in the same town as her for fifteen years,” I blurt out before I can control my tongue. I feel like I’m seventeen again, only instead of being too scared to talk this time I can’t seem to stop. “How could you have lost track of her?”

“Me and how many other people? This isn’t a tiny town, Mari,” Jake protests. “And it’s not like we were ever good friends. They were the popular crowd. We were the geeks. We wanted to _be_ them, but they never even knew who we were.”

Hurt, tired, and oh God, do I ever miss her. Something must show in my expression because his changes, and he reaches both hands for me this time, taking my fingers and holding on.

He’s waiting.

I can’t find words. The blurting has finished and I’m seventeen again and so tongue-tied that it hurts.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Jake finally says, voice soft and soothing. “She was the kind of person who would always fall on her feet.”

“I thought about sending a letter to her mom,” I whisper, “but I know she would’ve torn it up. And my mom—she hated Brenda. My dad never knew, never had any idea what was going on, but then there was Eddie…” my voice trails off.

Because Eddie knew. And Eddie finding out was what started the whole train wreck.

“I loved her.” I look at Jake, waiting for some reaction, but there isn’t one. “ _Loved_ her,” I try to clarify. “In the kissing down by the train tracks, hidden in the culvert sort of way, Jake. And she loved me back.”

He shakes his head. “She had Eddie.”

“Yeah.” I can’t deny that. “She had Eddie because he was the one she was supposed to have. And she had me. Right up until Eddie snuck over to her house after school one day and caught me and Brenda in bed. We were just kissing. Mostly dressed, even. And you’d think, he’s a boy, he’d just ask to join in, but he freaked out. Left. Told our parents.”

I still can’t forget that, the shouting, the yelling that _no daughter of theirs was going to be a freak!_. Both of us, her conservative parents and mine. They agreed that we were going to be separated. My dad had a new job. We were moving. They’d keep us from staying in contact.

My gaze drops because I can’t look at Jake. “It wasn’t as acceptable back then, Jake. Just fifteen years ago. It was hard loving someone who was afraid to love me back, and then we were kept apart. My mom was so gleeful when she showed me the wedding announcement. I thought about coming back, busting into the wedding, but we had this thing to go to. Some family thing in Arizona, so I went. And I told myself I could forget about Brenda.”

I worry at my lip, and slowly look back up. “Then this trip came up, and here I am. Looking up you. Wondering whatever happened to her.”

There’s a flash of something in his eyes, and I have to grab his hands, squeeze tight. “You first. You were my best friend back then, Jake, and I don’t want to lose you again. I was awful, and I let go of everything because I didn’t want to remember any of it. It made it hurt less, and I’m an asshole, right? But not anymore.” I smile slightly. “Next year. Same time. Right here again, no matter what we’re both doing. I promise.”

He relaxes, back into that calm ease we used to have when we’d spend the afternoons in my parents’ basement, sprawled together on the couch, watching movies on the old TV. “I promise,” he echoes. “I guess this explains why you were oblivious to my charms then, huh?”

I blink in bewilderment. “You liked me? God, Jake, you should’ve told me.”

“Would you have told me the truth?”

“Maybe?” And maybe not, I don’t know. I was scared of losing him, too, when it all came down to it. Afraid that he’d turn his back on me for being different. “I told you now.”

He smiles and laughs. “You did. And we’re still good, Mari.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. And dinner goes on. He orders the veal and I order pasta primavera. We finish the bottle of wine and we’re laughing by the end, talking about old times in between stories of the intervening years. I think his wife sounds wonderful and I can’t wait to meet her tomorrow, and he starts wheezing, he’s laughing so hard, when I tell him about breaking up with my girlfriend from college while we were stuck at the top of the ferris wheel.

We share dessert—a plate of miniature Italian pastries, fighting over the last cannoli. I’m in the middle of holding it to his lips, laughing when he nips at my fingers while he takes it, when I hear a hiss of indrawn breath.

I go cold, then warm, and I look over. My hand lowers slowly, face flushing as if I’ve been caught doing something far worse.

She doesn’t look the same. Her dark hair is shot with thin strands of grey that are not-quite covered by russet highlights. She carries weight in her hips, and a small pudge at the belly. Her shoes are flats instead of heels, low boots that have seen better days. She wears a t-shirt and jeans that fit her form, a far more lush build than I remember. And oh, do I ever remember.

And standing next to her is a slender girl with thin features and that dark hair that she used to have, pulled into a side ponytail that curls over her shoulder.

I’m on my feet before I’ve quite finished looking. I want to smile, but I don’t know if I can. I don’t know what she’s doing here, what brought here _here_ when we were talking about her. But she is here, and I thank God for that.

“Papa!” The girl waves, and after glancing at her mom she runs off to meet an older man—Eddie’s dad, I realize. The girl’s grandfather.

“Hey,” I say softly.

“Hey.” She seems wary, her arms crossed defensively. “You look good, Marisol.”

“So do you.”

She flushes, and looks down, her youthful confidence fled in the wake of aging skin and sagging breasts.

“Really,” I say, stepping forward. I reach out, touching her shoulder lightly, then let my hand drop away, afraid that someone is going to somehow start yelling. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Juliet wanted to see her grandfather. Ask him some questions for a school project she’s doing on ancestry,” Brenda says. I wait, and she looks back up at me, finally meeting my eyes, and I smile. She smiles back, and my heart stutters, warmth spreading through me. “What are you doing in town?”

“Business.” I motion at Jake, who is sitting there quietly. “Having dinner with Jake. Catching up.”

“Ah. I don’t want to interrupt.” She looks from him to me, and I can read what she thinks there after seeing our play.

“No, no, it’s all right. We can—” I look at Jake, and he stands, coming over to hug me and kiss me on the cheek.

“I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow,” he says. “Don’t lose the address. We’ve still got a lot of catching up to do.” He glances at Brenda and smiles when he looks back at me. “A _lot_ of catching up to do.”

I flush with the implication, and he wiggles his eyebrows at me and grins.

Brenda is watching me, and her expression lightens as Jake leaves.

“How long do you think Juliet will need to be here?” I ask, biting my lip, not sure if she knows what I’m asking.

“About an hour. Juliet!” Brenda waves and her daughter waves back. When Brenda holds up one finger, Juliet counters by holding up two. After a moment’s back and forth, Brenda relents, and Juliet’s attention goes back to her Papa. Brenda is smiling when she looks at me. “Make that two hours,” she says, and I know she is thinking exactly what I am.

I lay money on the table, adding to the generous tip Jake already left, and I grab my jacket. Together Brenda and I walk out of Sam’s and into the night.

We don’t say a word, turning to the right and heading down the street in an old, familiar way. We are several blocks from the restaurant when I feel fingertips brush mine, and I let mine brush back until they are tangled.

It has been so long since we’ve walked this path.

“I’m sorry about your divorce,” I say.

“I’m not,” she admits. “We started to fight, and he hit me. He accused me of not loving him anymore, and I told him he was right. And that after I had Juliet I was never sleeping with him again. So he hit me. And I left.”

“You could have called me.”

“I tried. Your mother told me about some girl named Hazel and then said if I called again, she’d tell the cops I was stalking you and get a restraining order.”

That’s my mom, managing to finally accept my sexuality and at the same time still blaming Brenda for turning me into a lesbian. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Silence as we walk, and the sound of a train horn blows in the distance.

“After I had Juliet, I got fat,” she says quietly.

“I don’t care.” I can’t say _no you’re not_ because she won’t listen to me. It’s far more important that I like those curves, that I still like everything about Brenda. “You’re still you, and nothing’s going to change that.”

“You look so _good_.” And I hear the uncertainty in her voice, the fear that everything is different now. “You look young,” she goes on, words rushing out. “And I look so old.”

I tighten my hold on her hand, leading her down under the bridge and into the shadows. Water laps against the shore where the bridge rises to carry the train overhead. It rushes through, shaking the stone pillars as I lean in and press her up against one, finding her mouth with mine. She tastes like a memory, sweet peppermint and a hint of vanilla, and that perfume she started buying when we were sixteen and first fell in love.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her again, as I kiss her in our place by the tracks. “All that matters is that this time, nothing, and no one, is going to keep us apart. We’re going to rewrite the story the way it was meant to be told. No more Brenda and Eddie.”

She laughs softly, and there is a trace of her confidence back as she takes control like she used to, fingers framing my face before she kisses me.

No more Brenda and Eddie. Tomorrow I’ll tell Jake the story of Brenda and Marisol.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for this lovely prompt, and for the ideas. I took it and ran, and hopefully I ran in a direction you will enjoy! I love this song, and the entire time I was writing, I kept hearing it in my mind as I worked. I think I need to go listen to it a few times now. :)
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, E, who is ever so patient with me.


End file.
